"The thing is done!" she said. "The bill of sale will be signed as soon as we can send it over."
"I had better bring it over myself," said Clayton, "and make the arrangement."
"So be it!" said Nina. "But pray let us be delivered from this place! Did you ever see such a desolate-looking house? I remember when I've seen it a perfect paradise—full of the most agreeable people."
"And pray what sort of a person did you find?" said Clayton, as they were riding homeward.
"Well," said Nina, "she's one of the tow-string order of women. Very slack-twisted, too, I fancy—tall, snuffy, and sallow. Clothes looked rough-dry, as if they had been pulled out of a bag. She had a bright-colored Madras handkerchief tied round her head, and spoke French a little more through her nose than French people usually do. Flourished a yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. Poor soul! She said she had been sick for a week with toothache, and kept awake all night! So, one mustn't be critical! One comfort about these French people is, that they are always 'ravis de vous voir,' let what will turn up. The good soul was really polite, and insisted on clearing all the things off from a dusty old chair for me to sit down in. The room was as much at sixes and sevens as the rest of the house. She apologized for the whole state of things by saying that they could not get workmen out there to do anything for her; and so everything is left in the second future tense; and the darkeys, I imagine, have a general glorification in the chaos. She is one of the indulgent sort, and I suspect she'll be eaten up by them like the locusts. Poor thing! she is shockingly home-sick, and longing for Louisiana, again. For, notwithstanding her snuffy appearance, and yellow pocket-handkerchief, she really has a genuine taste for beauty; and spoke most feelingly of the oleanders, crape myrtles, and cape jessamines, of her native state."
"Well, how did you introduce your business?" said Clayton, laughing at this description.
"Me?—Why, I flourished out the little French I have at command, and she flourished her little English; and I think I rather prepossessed the good soul, to begin with. Then I made a sentimental story about Lisette and Harry's amours; because I know French people always have a taste for the sentimental. The old thing was really quite affected, wiped her little black eyes, pulled her hooked nose as a tribute to my eloquence, called Lisette her 'enfant mignon,' and gave me a little lecture on the tender passion, which I am going to lay up for future use."
"Indeed!" said Clayton. "I should be charmed to have you repeat it. Can't you give us a synopsis?"
"I don't know what synopsis means. But, if you want me to tell you what she said, I shan't do it. Well, now, do you know I am in the best spirits in the world, now that I've got this thing off my mind, and out of that desolate house? Did you ever see such a direful place? What is the reason, when we get down south, here, everything seems to be going to destruction, so? I noticed it all the way down through Virginia. It seems as if everything had stopped growing, and was going backwards. Well, now, it's so different at the north! I went up, one vacation, into New Hampshire. It's a dreadfully poor, barren country; nothing but stony hills, and poor soil. And yet the people there seem to be so well off! They live in such nice, tight, clean-looking white houses! Everything around them looks so careful and comfortable; and yet their land isn't half so good as ours, down here. Why, actually, some of those places seem as if there were nothing but rock! And, then, they have winter about nine months in the year, I do believe! But these Yankees turn everything to account. If a man's field is covered with rock, he'll find some way to sell it, and make money out of it; and if they freeze up all winter, they sell the ice, and make money out of that. They just live by selling their disadvantages!"
"And we grow poor by wasting our advantages," said Clayton.